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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Meet the Racist Fascist Bob Lynn and Carl Gatto Adore

Imagine if Arizona attorney David Yarushalmi's testimony early this week, in front of the Alaska legislative committee looking into Rep. Carl Gatto and Rep. Bob Lynn's kooky HB 88 had opened with this line:

"There's a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote."

or this line:

"Some races perform better in sports, some better in mathematical problem solving, some better in language, some better in Western societies and some better in tribal ones."

or this line, about Jews:

"[Liberal Jews] destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite."

That's Rep. Carl Gatto and Rep. Bob Lynn's new BFF, gang. What a guy. No wonder they brought him up to Juneau to testify in favor of these two kooky legislators' newest waste of taxpayer money, their anti-Sharia law bill, that would - perhaps not coincidentally - further erode Native sovereignty here in a number of areas. Carl and Bob tend to have their own kooky moments.

From the state's Basis page for the bill, I decided to read Rep. Gatto's sponsor statement in which he describes the need for the bill. I decided to copy a phrase that appeared to be a few stories above Gatto's notoriously deficient vocabulary, from "his" bill's explanation and paste it into google:

"In addition, just about all Muslim countries have a de jure or de facto sharia supremacy clause which effectively does not allow any "secular" law."

The google result led me to David Yarushalmi's home page, where I read:

"In addition, just about all Muslim countries have a de jure or de facto sharia supremacy clause which effectively does not allow any “secular” law...."

No - Yarushalmi's not referring to Gatto's letter. Gatto's letter lifted this - and the text of his bill - from Yarushelmi-supplied materials.

We're not the only state suffering from this racist fascist's efforts. Sixteen states have been pushed into similar bills by Yarushalmi. The most recent one other than ours to make local headlines was his bill for Tennessee:

The wave of Islamophobia continues to spread across the United States, as a Tennessee bill now on the table would make “following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.” The author behind this bill, one of 15 similar pieces of legislation being considered in states around the U.S., is a notorious, far-right figure: David Yerushalmi.

Gatto's anti-labor legislation, like this bill, was boiler plate garbage, concocted by out-of-state extremists with an anti-American agenda. It is one thing that this dense, selfish (both he and his wife collect tier one public employee benfits - plus, Gatto collects a state disability), ineffective legislator can't craft his own legislation. But it is quite another that his useless bills cost taxpayers lots of money to waste time on listening to racist nutcases like Yerushalmi.

On the other hand, with the scores of mosques and dozens of madrassas being constructed in the Mat-Su valley, maybe Gatto and Lynn are just in time. Snark aside, I doubt these bills will get anywhere this session.

Both Judy (2008) and I (2004 - Greens; 2010 - Democrats) have been approached to run against Gatto in District 13. Both of us love our jobs and would not want to have to leave them, even to serve in the legislature. As if we'd have a chance of winning. Heh. If Jesus came back and ran against Gatto, Carl would paint Jesus as a dirty fucking hippy extremist that deserves to be crucified. And Gatto would win.